Jacques Tati
雅克·塔蒂
French director and actor, 1907–1982. He came from music-hall mime and from 1949 wrote, directed and starred in his own films, completing six features, most of them built around the character of Monsieur Hulot. Dialogue is minimal, and the comedy depends largely on sound design and staging. The commercial failure of Playtime bankrupted him.
Career
Tati performed mime in the Paris music halls in the 1930s, making his name with a routine impersonating sportsmen, and appeared in several short films. He directed his first feature, Jour de fête, in 1949. Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, in 1953, introduced the character of Hulot, whom he played again in three later features.
Playtime was shot in 70mm on a set of whole streets built outside Paris and took three years to make. It failed to recover its cost after opening in 1967; Tati lost the rights to his own films and was declared bankrupt in 1974. He completed only Trafic and one television film afterwards, and died in 1982.
